Hey friends! Welcome back to part 3 of the month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight. In today’s episode, we are focusing on underlying health conditions that could be sabotaging your weight loss efforts.

There are several conditions that can do this but in order to keep this episode from being super long, I’m just going to focus on two conditions that many people deal with and often aren’t even aware that they are having an issue.

Poor Gut Health

A healthy gut is the foundation of overall health. Hippocrates, who is known as the Father of Medicine, said that “all disease begins in the gut”. This topic is becoming more and more discussed and studied in the medical field, but a lot of people still just think of the gut as the stomach, the place where their food goes when they eat, or the place they would like to lose a few inches, but it is so much more! So many of the functions of our bodies are dependent on what happens in our gut. So, what exactly do I mean when I’m talking about the gut or gut health? Let’s do a quick recap of the anatomy of our digestive tract and why it’s relevant to our overall health. 

When someone refers to the “gut”, they are referring to the digestive tract as a whole. This starts in the mouth, where you chew your food, and then includes the esophagus, the stomach, and both the small and large intestines. When we talk about “gut health”, usually that is in reference to the microbiome, which is the ecosystem of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that lives inside of our bodies. It is estimated that the average adult has trillions of these microbes living on our skin and in our digestive tract. As a matter of fact, there are more bacteria cells in us than human cells! Crazy, right? What’s more, is that there are estimated to be up to 1,000 different species of bacteria in our gut microbiome and each plays a different role in our bodies. 

Some of these gut bugs are good guys and are vital to our health. They help us do things like absorb nutrients, make and regulate hormones, and produce neurotransmitters (for example, serotonin, which we know as an antidepressant neurotransmitter). They also are vital to immune function, regulating blood sugar balance, increasing healthy cholesterol levels and keeping our skin clear and healthy.

The microbiome is amazing, but when this ecosystem gets out of balance and there are more bad guys than good guys (Dysbiosis), it can cause a lot of health issues, including making it very difficult to lose weight. 

Another common issue with gut health is increased intestinal permeability (aka Leaky Gut). Our intestines are naturally semi-permeable to let tiny micro-nutrients pass through and into our bloodstream - it’s how we absorb the nutrients from our food. However, certain external factors, like unhealthy foods, infections, toxins, and stress can break apart the tight junctions in the intestinal wall, which causes a leaky gut. This allows things that were never meant to get through the intestinal wall like toxins, microbes, and undigested food particles to escape into our bloodstream. Our immune system then marks those as foreign invaders and attacks them creating an inflammatory state in our bodies. The combination of imbalanced gut flora and a leaky gut causes an array of symptoms, most of which also make weight loss more difficult. 

So, what can we do to keep our microbiome balanced and healthy? As I mentioned before, this is a complex issue and if you are having severe symptoms, I highly suggest you work with a professional one on one, but here are just a few tips to improve gut health overall:

• Remove irritating or inflammatory foods from your diet

We’ve talked about these quite a bit in the last few episodes, so I won’t list them all here but this for sure includes processed junk foods, foods with added sugar or artificial ingredients, trans fats, and for some gluten and dairy. 

• Add fiber to your diet

Most of us aren’t getting even close to the recommended amount of fiber per day (at least 25-30 grams). An easy way to do this is to fill half your plate with high-fiber veggies like dark leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower, brussel sprouts and asparagus. Also, apples and berries are great fruits to add in for some extra fiber without raising your blood sugar levels too much. 

• Chew your food

It is recommended that we chew around 25-30 times per bite! That is A LOT but properly chewing helps to kick-start the digestion process before our food ever gets to our stomachs. This will help the entire process and support nutrient absorption. 

• Repair your intestinal wall

If you feel pretty sure that you have Leaky Gut (by the way, most of us do), you need to help your intestinal wall become strong again. A great way to do this is by drinking Bone Broth - either chicken or beef, from a quality source. I usually recommend that my clients start out drinking 1-2 cups per day. One of the great things about bone broth is that it contains many different amino acids from the bones including gelatin, glycine, and glutamine. Each of these helps to strengthen and rebuild the mucosal layer of the intestines, which will help reduce permeability. Bone broth has also been shown to reduce inflammation in the body, which will help the gut to heal more quickly. 

You can make your own bone broth at home or there are a few great companies out there that make really high-quality bone broth. I suggest not using the regular stuff you get at Kroger or Trader Joe’s for therapeutic use. It’s great to use for cooking but the gelatin content is lower, which is not what you want for repair. Here is a recipe for my favorite  homemade bone broth and a link to my favorite store-bought brand as well.

• Rebuild your microbiome

Taking quality probiotics will help to replenish the good bacteria in your gut, which will keep the bad guys in check. Here are a few things to look for when choosing a brand of probiotics - it should have multiple strains of bacteria - not just one - and contain at least 20 billion CFUs for a regular adult dosage (this dose will need to be higher if you are treating something like leaky gut or IBS). Ideally, it’s best to take probiotics at the beginning of a meal, which will help them survive the stomach acid and make their way to the intestines. There are specific types of probiotics, like spore or soil-based, as well as live and raw probiotics, that will have a lower amount of CFUs which is totally fine. They are sourced differently and don’t have as difficult of a time getting to the intestines as a normal probiotic will, so you don’t need to worry about the higher CFU count or taking them with a meal.  Be sure to rotate the types of probiotics you take (the combination of strains) every 3-4 months to ensure a good balance. Here are a few of my favorite brands: 

• Klaire Labs Ther-Biotic Complete Probiotic

• Organic Liquid Probiotic by Mary Ruth’s Organics

• Klaire Labs Biospora Probiotic 

Hormone Imbalance

The other health condition that can be making it feel impossible for you to lose weight is hormonal imbalance. Hormonal imbalance can wreak havoc on our physical and mental health, but often it has been going on for a long time before the symptoms get bad enough for us to even notice. We explain away things like chronic fatigue, recurring headaches, anxiety or depression, and that stubborn weight around the waist as just a normal part of life - but what if it’s not? Everyone has hormonal fluctuations and most will experience an imbalance at some point in their lives, but when it becomes chronic or the new normal,  and especially when we aren’t even aware of it, it can become detrimental to our health. 

There are three hormones, that I want to talk about in this episode, that are the major players when it comes to our health - thyroid hormones, insulin, and cortisol. Most of the time when people talk about hormones or hormone imbalance, they are referring to reproductive hormones like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, but those are what some call “downstream” hormones. While those are important, they aren’t ever going to be balanced if we don’t get these other three balanced first. 

The thyroid produces hormones (T3 and T4) that affect the metabolism of every single cell in the body. A well functioning thyroid is critical to a well functioning body. It regulates so many things including overall metabolism - which means, if your thyroid is out of whack, it is extremely difficult to control your weight. When the thyroid hormones are imbalanced, this can lead to either hypothyroidism (which is when your thyroid is producing too little thyroid hormones) or hyperthyroidism (when the thyroid is producing too much). Hypothyroidism, or a sluggish thyroid, is more common in the US than hyperthyroidism. Symptoms include fatigue, weight gain or inability to lose weight, puffiness around the face, sensitivity to cold, dry skin and hair thinning, irregular periods, and depression.  If you can relate to these symptoms, it is so important to work with your physician to begin to restore balance to your thyroid. It’s important to ask for a full thyroid panel - including a check of your thyroid antibodies, as well as T3 and T4 levels, not just TSH - to ensure the correct diagnosis is made. Also, for the mamas and mamas-to-be out there, it’s a great idea to have your thyroid checked before trying to conceive, as thyroid health can affect your fertility and the health of your pregnancy. You should also have it rechecked in the postpartum phase, as pregnancy can alter those hormones and it can be common to have an imbalance during that time. This can really make things like postpartum anxiety or depression much worse, so it’s not something to ignore. 

The next hormone that has a huge impact on just about everything in the body is Insulin. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas to help your cells use the glucose in your blood and to stabilize blood sugar levels. When blood glucose levels are elevated on a regular basis, often due to inflammation from any number of things including diet and stress, the pancreas has to secrete an increased amount of insulin and repeatedly. If this becomes a chronic or recurring thing, the insulin receptors on our cells become desensitized to insulin, meaning they can no longer trigger the cells to metabolize the glucose. This is what as known as Insulin Resistance. This creates both elevated levels of glucose and insulin in the blood and when left untreated, will lead to Type 2 diabetes. It can also lead to metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and hormonal diseases like PCOS. 

The last hormone that I want to cover today is Cortisol. If you remember, in Episode 2, I talked about how Cortisol is the main stress hormone, produced by the adrenal glands and affects almost every cell in our bodies. These effects include controlling the body’s blood sugar levels (which means, it affects the insulin that we just talked about), acting as an anti-inflammatory, influencing memory formation and blood pressure - just to name a few.  Just like insulin, while an essential hormone, too much for too long leads to dysfunction in our bodies. Also, just like insulin, our cells have receptors on them for cortisol, and if our cells become desensitized to it, due to too much exposure, inflammation levels in our bodies actually increase. This leads to things like adrenal fatigue, a sluggish metabolism, reduced immune function and a cascade of other hormonal imbalances. If you are living in chronic stress, your body is continually producing cortisol, which means it isn’t metabolizing properly, it isn’t resting properly, and you can bet that more hormone imbalance is just around the corner. Common symptoms are being “tired and wired”, weight gain - especially around the midsection, acne, amenorrhea or irregular cycles, insulin resistance, brain fog, anxiety, and depression. 

So, what should you do if you relate to any of these hormonal imbalances that I’ve mentioned? First thing is to work with a physician you trust and you feel has the desire and the time to really help you explore what may be going on in your body. Labs are a good place to start, especially for checking thyroid hormone and insulin levels. Finding and treating the root cause is the most important step to restoring balance to your hormones! 

In addition, here are a few other things you can do to nourish your body and support your hormones:

• Take care of your gut health 

Your gut helps you make hormones as well as get rid of any excess hormones that you no longer need.

• Give your liver some love 

Your liver not only helps filter out toxins from the body but excess hormones too and it can’t do that if it’s sluggish and bogged down. Doing things like drinking lots of water, reducing toxin intake and eating more fiber can help give your liver a little boost. 

• Follow an anti-inflammatory diet 

The same principles apply here that I mentioned before when talking about gut health. If it’s good for your gut, it’s good for your hormones too! 

• Work hard at reducing stress 

A few ideas are to set boundaries, create margin in your time, create self-care rituals, move your body for 30 minutes a day (by doing an activity that you enjoy), practice deep breathing (4 seconds breathing in, 4 seconds holding, and 4 seconds breathing out). 

• Get more sleep 

The recommended amount is 7-9 hours every night - make this a priority! Refer back to Episode 2 for more sleep tips.

I know that today’s episode has been full of a lot of information, but my goal is to help you have the knowledge and understanding of how your body is designed to function and what might be interfering in that process! Your health is one of your greatest gifts and assets in this life, so please give it the time and attention that it deserves! 

As always, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me - you can find me here on Insta or Facebook. If you want to take the next step in getting more support on your health journey, there are still a few spots left in my Fall Group Coaching Program. Click here to find out more or to sign up! 

Enjoy the rest of your day!